There are many business environments where great numbers of mailing pieces must be processed daily by opening the incoming mail envelopes and removing their contents. Literally thousands of mailing pieces are processed in this manner each day by banks, credit card companies, and utility companies to name just a few.
Both automatic and semi-automatic machines are known which facilitate the processing of incoming mail pieces as referred to above. The automatic machines remove the contents from the envelopes unattended by an operator while the semi-automatic machines present the envelopes to an operator in an opened condition for manual extraction of the contents. Both types of machines find considerable use, the semi-automatic machines being advantageous where lesser but still significant volumes of mail pieces must be processed. One such semi-automatic machine is fully shown and described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,159,611.
Although the machines shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,159,611 includes an envelope cutter for severing one edge of an envelope, many machines do not include such an envelope cutter. Envelope cutters are necessary for severing at least one edge of the envelopes to be processed to allow the contents to be efficiently removed. Hence, many machines are adapted to act upon pre-cut envelopes only, and, as a result, separate envelope cutters are needed in the art.
Envelope cutters for use in conjunction with high volume mail processing machines must be of high-speed and capable of unattended operation. Such cutters must sever an edge portion from the envelopes with the edge portions being of sufficient width dimension to assure complete severance, but of narrow enough width to preclude the contents from being cut. Hence, registration of the envelopes with respect to the machine cutter blade is critical. However, registration of the envelopes with respect to the machine cutter blade has been difficult to obtain especially when the machines are operated at high speeds. Proper registration is rendered even still more difficult when envelopes of various dimensions are to be accommodated.
It is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide a new and improved cutter apparatus for severing one edge of an envelope.
It is a more particular object of the present invention to provide an improved envelope cutter apparatus which severs one edge of successive envelopes at high speed and which provides positive registration of the envelopes with respect to the cutting blade.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an improved envelope cutting apparatus which provides positive registration of the envelopes with respect to the cutting blade while operating at highspeed and which is capable of accommodating envelopes of various dimensions.